Emerging technologies have redefined business by erasing the traditional boundaries of time and geography and creating new communities of customers, distributors and suppliers, with new demands for products and services. Most notably, the Internet has redefined how commerce occurs between businesses and consumers and with that, how businesses create, communicate, and deliver value to consumers –marketing. With the evolution of the Internet over the past decade, the practice of marketing has changed significantly. Before, the advertiser was in control and trying to persuade the customer to buy a product or service. Now the customer is in control with a plethora of information at their fingertips. Moreover, the internet is a new two-way medium – the advertising message is put out there, and the potential customer can comment on it, forward it to 10 friends, mock it, improve on it, blog it, etc. This two-way medium has created a new form of Internet marketing and with it, additional challenges and benefits for marketers. In general, traditional marketing uses demographics to attempt to narrow a large population down to a targeted potential consumer. Internet marketing is the opposite, requiring no demographics, because it is the very targeted viewer (consumer) searching for the specific content. Although there are numerous ways the Internet has impacted the practice of marketing, the most significant to businesses and consumers are the new cost structures facing businesses, the globalization of markets, and a new level of customer interaction and understanding.
Unlike traditional marketing such as print, radio and TV advertisement, Internet marketing can be a much more economical method of marketing and operations. Compared to tradit ...